


With a Little Help From My Friends

by appleschloss



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, TW: Suicide Mention, eric needs a hug and a therapist okay, tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 21:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11471949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appleschloss/pseuds/appleschloss
Summary: Bitty just wanted to clear his mind, to get rid of his intrusive thoughts. No one was out at 3am anyway, so that'd be the perfect time to take a walk, right?





	With a Little Help From My Friends

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't see the tags, I wanted to give a heads up again. Bitty's in a bad place in this fic and there are mentions of suicide.

The cursor blinking on the screen was mocking him. It had been about fifteen minutes since Bitty had actually typed something to add to his assignment. His phone sat on his desk, open to his conversation with Jack, who hadn’t replied since several hours ago. His brain was running a mile a minute, but it was thinking about anything but what it should be.

The things it was thinking weren’t positive either.

_“Jack’s lying. He does have time to talk to you, he just doesn’t want to.”_

_“You shouldn’t bother your friends with your ‘problems.’ They’ll think you’re pathetic.”_

_“You’re just needy and whiney.”_

_“Other people have it way worse than you do.”_

_“You’re just overreacting.”_

Bitty’s mind went back to this morning, when he and Lardo had had breakfast alone. He’d almost brought up some of his worries to her then, but his thoughts had said the same thing then as they were saying then.

_“Lardo wouldn’t want to hear your problems.”_

_“She’s just pretending to be your friend because Jack is her friend.”_

_“It would be rude of you to bother her with your complaining.”_

Bitty blinked, eyes coming into focus again. His hands were shaking. He took a deep breath and shoved his chair harshly away from his desk.

He felt trapped. The normally welcoming walls felt restrictive. Bitty snatched his phone off of the charger and headed down to the kitchen.

He was careful not to thud down the old stairs, not wanting to wake up Chowder or Lardo. He reached the kitchen without much incident, but paused in the doorway. His breathing was still shaky and the walls were still too close. He didn’t want to walk into the kitchen. He wanted out.

Bitty glanced out the window and then around the room. He spotted Jack’s hoodie on the back of a chair. Thank god he’d ditched it there yesterday, because he didn’t feel like going back upstairs.

He stepped into the kitchen and hurriedly slipped on the hoodie. He grabbed a beanie off of the couch, not caring whose it was or where it had been. He then slipped on his shoes that were sitting by the door before slipping outside.

The sound of the door latching behind him broke the quiet reprieve of the outdoors. It was almost eerie how empty it was outside. Bitty started walking away from the Haus, phone and hands in his pocket. It was entirely quiet. He walked under a light and stopped, looking up and listening to the soft buzzing he normally wouldn’t hear in the daytime.

It was nice at first. His brain went quiet as he just enjoyed the nature. But then he remembered why he left in the first place.

He started walking again. Soon he was walking away from Frat Row and heading towards the outskirts of campus. Sirens sounded softly in the distance and a dog howled in response. When they quieted, Bitty strained to pick up the faint sounds of the river to his left.

_“You could just jump into the river now. No one would notice.”_

Bitty’s pace picked up to a brisk walk. A few streets down, a car drove across an intersection.

_“Just lie in the road. It’s dark enough that someone would hit you before they saw you. It’ll be fast.”_

His rubber soles smacked the pavement as he started to jog. He wished, now, that he’d brought his headphones. Anything to help drown out his own thoughts.

As he jogged, his breathing picked up more, breath fogging in front of his face. His fingers were starting to chill, now that he’d brought them out of his cozy pockets.

_“There’s about ten pies in the freezer. The team won’t even notice you’re gone for another day or two, if you weren’t to go back, that is.”_

Bitty dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He pushed himself even further, now sprinting down the road. When it ended at an intersection, he made a quick right and kept going.

Now all he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. His lungs were screaming at him to stop, but he pushed it a little longer.

_“Wait, the concrete doesn’t normally move that way.”_

Bitty managed to catch himself with his arm when he stumbled, so he didn’t smash his nose into the hard ground. He was frozen for a second, braced above the concrete, still panting, before he finally crumpled. He groaned as he pushed himself onto his back.

The heartbeat in his ears was slowly transitioning into a ringing sound. He gave a small laugh thinking about someone actually using a transition, like he would in editing, to change what sounds he was hearing.

What if his whole life was just someone trying to piece shit together on Premiere Pro? That would be funny, wouldn’t it?

Bitty blinked slowly. They were adding in a sort of sparkling transition, or effect, or something, because he was now seeing little bursts of light in his vision that he was almost sure weren’t supposed to be there.

Shit, he was about to pass out, wasn’t he?

Bitty fumbled a few times, trying to pull his phone out of his pocket. Fuck, why did it have to be so cold out tonight?

His hands were shaking as he worked to unlock his phone. After three failed attempts, he finally got the password right. His messages opened up and he clicked on a random conversation. He blinked, trying to focus on the screen and make sure he wasn’t texting his mom or something.

That wouldn’t help anything.

Nope, it was Chowder, thankfully, because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to click on someone else in time.

“went joggin” he managed to type out. He thinks he hit send, but he didn’t have the time to double check before his vision started to tunnel.

He put his phone down, so he wouldn’t drop it and crack it, just before everything went out completely.

\--

The next thing Bitty remembered was a bright white light.

His head was still pounding, ears foggy, but he tried to open his eyes to see what was going on.

Shapes were coming closer to him. Large shapes.

Familiar shapes?

“-since 3 AM?”

“-needs a blanket-”

One of the shapes moved away, while the other got much closer to him.

Now someone was touching his forehead.

“Fuck, he’s frozen.”

The shape quickly scooped him up. Bitty hissed. They were so warm. He curled up a bit, trying to bury his face in their chest when they spoke again.

“Bitty, come on, turn your head. Can you drink this?”

Oh, that was Ransom speaking. He’d listen to Ransom. Ransom was nice.

Bitty turned his head and a small object was placed gently against his lips. Bitty tried to open his eyes as his lips parted a little and water poured into his mouth. Bitty swallowed it greedily, but it was soon being pulled away from him.

“Good job Bits,” Ransom said softly, then his voice grew louder. “Did you tell Lardo and Dex that we found him?”

“Yeah, I texted them,” Holster replied. Bitty blinked. Why could he only see grey?

He heard a car door open and Bitty moved his head. He’d been looking directly into Ransom’s shirt. That made more sense.

The heat in the car made Bitty curl up more. It was then that he realized exactly how freezing he’d been. His teeth started to chatter softly and Ransom rubbed his arms, trying to warm him up.

“We need to get him back to the Haus, get him some blankets,” Ransom mused.

Bitty felt the truck rumble under them as they started to move. Blankets sounded nice, and maybe some food.

“Don’t worry Bits, we can find you something to eat.” Holster reassured him. Oh, did he say that outloud?

“Jack’ll probably be there when we get back.” Holster continued.

 _That_ made Bitty perk up. He tried to sit up and actually focus more, but his vision didn’t appreciate it.

Ransom’s arms tightened around him. “Hey, it’s okay. We got you, Bits. Did you fall or anything? Is your head okay?”

His head was fine, but he was more concerned about Jack. He had practice tomorrow, he couldn’t be down here at…

“‘M fine. What time is it?” Bitty rasped out.

There was a pause. “It’s a little after 5am,” Ransom finally answered him.

Shit, he had a paper due today that was only half finished. How had he been out for two hours?

“I have a paper to do,” Bitty whined softly.

Holster gave a short laugh, although it wasn’t super happy, more surprised. “Don’t worry about it, Bits. One of us will talk to your prof, okay?”

Bitty slumped against Ransom’s chest again, his head now rested up on Ransom’s shoulder. “Jack has practice…” he mumbled. “He should be home.”

Ransom and Holster shared a look, but didn’t say anything else. Instead, Ransom just started rubbing his back. Bitty relaxed more, his body still exhausted. He let his eyes slip closed again and let out a sigh.

When Bitty opened his eyes, they were back at the Haus. The front light was on. Chowder, Dex and Nursey were standing near the Haus door, and Lardo and Jack were huddled together under the tree.

All five sets of eyes were on the truck as it pulled up to the curb. Bitty was very aware of the attention that was being focused on him at the moment.

 _“You shouldn’t have texted Chowder. You wasted all of their time.”_ His brain scolded. _“They should be sleeping, and Jack should be home. He has practice. That’s more important than this.”_

Bitty shrunk into himself a bit. He knew Jack was looking at him, and as much as he didn’t want to see his boyfriend right now, he couldn’t help but look back.

Ransom opened the car door. He looked down at him. “Do you feel up to walking?”

Bitty nodded quickly. He didn’t want to bother Ransom anymore, or draw more attention by having himself be carried in. He sat up and turned slowly before slipping out of the truck.

Ransom’s hand went to his elbow when Bitty swayed a bit. Jack dashed over to his side, one of his arms slipping around Bitty’s waist. His face was painted with concern and a bit of fear.

“ _Eric_. Are you okay? What happened?” He asked softly but quickly.

Bitty leaned into Jack for support. “I went for a walk,” he explained, voice a bit weak. He tried to straighten up more, and cleared his throat.

Jack’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t ask anything else. “Let’s go inside.”

Bitty glanced up at everyone once, and saw the varying expressions of concern and worry on their face. He flushed slightly. He’d been trying not to waste their time, and yet it seemed in his need to clear his mind and keep to himself he did just that.

Chowder, Dex, and Nursey stepped aside, while Lardo, Ransom, and Holster followed in behind Jack and Bitty.

They all went into the kitchen. Jack immediately pulled out a chair for Bitty, which Bitty was grateful for. He sank down into it, his back hunched, arms crossed and resting on his legs. Somehow, a blanket was passed over to them, and it was wrapped around Bitty’s shoulders. One of his hands held onto the edge, his fingers slowly rubbing over the rough wool absentmindedly.

Jack pulled out a chair next to him, their knees almost touching, but not quite. He looked up, confused. Maybe Jack didn’t want to touch him?

Jack looked up and read the expression on his face. His features softened a bit and he reached out, placing his hand on Bitty’s knee and rubbing his thumb on Bitty’s leg. Bitty instantly relaxed, looking past Jack now.

Lardo had pulled a chair over to Bitty’s other side, and Ransom and Holster were sitting immediately next to her. Chowder also had a chair, but he was on the other side of Jack, while Nursey and Dex were leaning on the counters closer to the door.

“What do you want to eat, Bitty?” Ransom asked, making Bitty’s head snap over to him.

“I- um...” he licked his lips, trying to think of something that wouldn’t take too much work. “I have some cookie dough poptarts in the freezer still, I think.”

Ransom got up, opening the freezer and rummaging around. He pulled out the poptarts, as well as one of Bitty’s strawberry rhubarb pies. He turned the oven on with a practiced movement, unwrapped the pie, and slid it inside. Then he grabbed a bottle of water and handed the water and poptarts to Bitty.

“Thanks,” Bitty said. He opened the water and took a long swig before setting it aside and starting to slowly work on the poptarts.

“Bittle.” Bitty looked up at his boyfriend, feeling bad when he saw the worry in his eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Bitty glanced around at his friends. They were all looking at him, but none of them seemed angry, or were judging him. Lardo gave him a small smile, and Bitty managed a small one back before looking at Jack.

“... I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed,” he explained. “I thought a walk would help.”

“What time did you leave?” Jack asked, this time a bit firmer.

“A little before three I think.”

“Bits.” He turned to look at Lardo. She was leaning forward in her chair. “Before this, when was the last time you ate?”

Bitty furrowed his eyebrows, trying to remember. “I think I had something at lunch.”

“How much?” Lardo asked, not missing a beat.

“I think I had a protein bar… and that was it,” he admitted.

Jack frowned. Lardo sighed.

“I don’t want to interrogate you, or anything, but,” she paused, “we’ve noticed you haven’t been eating as much. At least, not while around us.”

Bitty chewed on his lower lip, not wanting to lie about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to eat, it was just that his stomach was upset more often than not, or he’d get distracted and just forget to eat.

“I’m sorry,” he replied instead, squirming a bit.

“We’re not mad at you, Bitty,” Chowder told him, his voice very calm and soothing. His eyebrows furrowed just slightly. “We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“We got worried, dude,” Nursey piped in, and Dex nodded in agreement.

Everyone seemed so genuinely worried and concerned about him, it melted all Bitty’s arguments. Even though his thoughts still warred against it, he was more aware of the wrongness of his mind.

Bitty pulled his knees up to his chest, his feet resting on the chair, so he could wrap the blanket further around himself. He couldn’t really bring himself to look at anyone directly for too long, so he just glanced around occasionally while he spoke.

“I… I just haven’t been feeling… well, recently. A-and it’s been hard to convince myself to… talk to anyone about it,” he explained slowly.

“You know, you could talk to a therapist on campus,” Ransom suggested.

Bitty worried at his lower lip a bit. He knew he should, but-

“People need mental doctors just like they need normal doctors, and there’s nothing wrong with it,” Dex told him. “I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Jack moved in closer to Bitty. “It really helped me, and you know I could help you find one if you didn’t want one on campus.”

“I’ve heard of like, online therapists before, so you could just talk to them from your room, instead of going anywhere,” Holster piped in. “That way you could be comfortable and shit.”

“Yeah, and you could just like, put a sock on the doorknob and we won’t bother you,” Chowder added. “That way it's not like you're having to tell us exactly what's going on, but we know not to bother you.”

“Do you _want_ to talk to a therapist Bits?” Lardo asked him.

_“You don't need a therapist, you're just over-”_

“If it helped me not feel so…” he trailed off and the just nodded.

Jack leaned in and gave him a kiss on his temple. “I love you Bits, I'm sorry I haven't been free to talk to you much recently. I know that probably didn't help.”

Bitty shrugged. “It's not your fault…” he mumbled softly.

“Bro, could I give you a hug?” Ransom asked. Bitty looked up and nodded quickly.

Everyone converged in then, making Bitty the middle of a large group hug.

“Don't forget, we love you too Bits,” Lardo said from where she was pressed into his side.

Bitty teared up and snuggled in further. “Th-thanks guys.”

“Yeah Bits, and don't worry about your paper thing.” Holster chimed in. “Which class is it?”

“European History,” Jack supplied.

“Hey I had that class last semester,” Holster noted. “Yeah, we def got you covered there bro.”

Finally, Jack was the one to break them apart. “I think the pie is warm enough now, Ransom.”

“Oh shit, you're right,” Ransom yelped, sliding over to the oven.

“Justin Oluransi, you better not burn my pie,” Bitty chided with a teary laugh.

“I would _never…_ do something like that on purpose,” he said with slight worry as he peered into the oven. “Ah hah! It's perfect.”

He quickly pulled it out and set it on the stove top. Holster got out the plates and they quickly cut up a slice and handed it to Bitty. Bitty smiled at them and sat at the table with it.

“Alright, now everyone else fight for it,” Holster declared.

“Nothing _loud,”_ Jack reminded them firmly, right before they all could launch at each other. “It's 5am, and normal people are asleep right now.”

That's when Bitty remembered. “Jack, wait, don't you have practice tomorrow?”

While the rest of the team went at the pie, Jack sat back down right beside Bitty. “It's optional skate. I already texted and explained something came up.” He gave Bitty another kiss, this time on his cheek. “Nothing could keep me away right now, anyway.”

Bitty took a few bites of his pie, while Lardo sat down and offered Jack a fork. Jack smiled and took a bite of Lardo’s slice before looking back at Bitty.

“Why don't we finish this upstairs, so you can get some sleep?” he suggested kindly.

Bitty nodded, a yawn bubbling up then. “Sounds… good,” he agreed sleepily.

Jack helped Bitty to his feet, heading with him out of the kitchen.

A conglomeration of “good night”s followed behind them.

“Night, Bits!”

“Love you, Bits!”

“Sleep well!”

Bitty couldn't help but smile into his pie. He looked over at Jack and then glanced back at his friends.

He was so glad he'd chosen Samwell.

**Author's Note:**

> A *huge* thanks to iloveyoutoobits and immarcesibility for helping beta this fic. I really appreciate it <3 
> 
> If you wanna hmu on tumblr, my Check Please blog is thehockeyhaus!! 
> 
> Comments are love <3


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